Two glasses of wine a week still safe for pregnant women

Pregnant women and those hoping to conceive can safely drink up to two glasses of wine a week without harming the foetus, the Department of Health said yesterday, rejecting claims that the only safe limit is no alcohol at all.

The department was unmoved by assertions at a conference in Wigan on foetal alcohol spectrum (FAS) disorder yesterday that women who drink in pregnancy could be causing irreparable harm to their child.

Dr Raja Mukherjee, an expert on the disorder who works at St George's hospital medical school in Tooting, London, called for pregnant women to cut out alcohol completely, and said the UK's binge drinking habits were of particular concern.

"Everyone who drinks during pregnancy is potentially at risk," he said. "Studies to date have shown that the most common group to have children with foetal alcohol syndrome are people who drink chronically during pregnancy.

"There is an increasing literature of evidence, however, to suggest that binge drinking as well as low doses of alcohol can cause damage."

Studies in the US, South Africa and Scandinavia suggest that one in 300 infants is affected by some form of FAS disorder. There are no comparable figures in the UK. Researchers believe that affected children can suffer problems with memory, attention span, hyperactivity, physical abnormalities and a diminished IQ.

Dr Mukherjee wants to carry out research on the problem in the UK. He believes the condition is often not diagnosed. "FAS is a pervasive disorder. This means that it will never be cured and will never go away," he said. "It affects the basic structure of the brain and the way that it processes information."

But the Department of Health said the research cited at the conference had been reviewed in March as part of the government's alcohol harm reduction strategy, and that the two units a week limit was considered to be safe. "It [the research] was seen as valuable, but there were questions about its robustness," a spokeswoman said.

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